The present invention relates to a scanning optical system for forming an electrostatic latent image on a scan target surface such as a surface of a photoconductive drum, and a printer including such a scanning optical system.
As is well known, scanning optical systems are installed in a variety of printing devices such as laser beam printers, fax machines and copy machines. The scanning optical system dynamically deflects a laser beam (which has been modulated according to image data) by use of a revolving polygon mirror and converges the dynamically deflected laser beam on the surface of a photoconductive drum by use of an imaging optical system, by which the surface of the photoconductive drum (scan target surface) is scanned with the converged laser beam and thereby an electrostatic latent image composed of a plurality of dots is drawn on the scanned surface of the photoconductive drum.
In general, intensity distribution of the laser beam incident on the scan target surface is not a perfect Gaussian distribution, and it is known that the main beam is accompanied by several rings of light (side lobes) of lower light quantity which are caused by diffraction at apertures placed on an optical path of the laser beam. As described in Japanese Patent Provisional Publication No. HEI 09-080333, the side lobe is known to expose the photoconductive drum and cause print error called “black stripes” in halftone printing if the intensity of the side lobe exceeds approximately 6% of the central intensity of the main beam. In an:ideal state of the imaging optical system, the side lobe intensity remains at approximately 4% of the central intensity of the main beam, by which the black stripes are not caused.
However, if microscopic undulations exist on an optical surface of the imaging optical system, the side lobe intensity changes as the laser beam passes through the undulating part. If the side lobe intensity exceeds the threshold value due to the change of the intensity of the side lobe, the black stripes occur in halftone printing.